In a world wh
ere non-hotel accommodation is booming, TripAdvisor is working hard to keep up. People are booking apartments, rooms, vacation-rentals, and dorm beds as an alternative to hotels, and TripAdvisor has been making a half-hearted attempt to show all those on their site, giving the same price comparison experience as they do with hotels, and it’s just not working, especially for hostels.
When people look to stay at a hostel, the primarily seek to stay in a dorm bed first. Sure some splurge on private rooms, but thats not everyone, and we here at HostelTrends just don’t understand why. Hostel inventory data structures are just as mature as those of hotels or else the bundles of technology available for hostels just wouldn’t be accessible and the aspiring hostel metasearch sites like Hostelz and Hostelzoo functionality would basically be impossible. What we don’t get is that if other sites can pull it off, why won’t TripAdvisor? Surely they have the tech and capital to make it happen.
The thing is, by not showing dorm beds, they are missing out. Hostelworld has a monopoly, but Booking.com and now even Expedia are in the space, and the competition is on the rise. Somehow Hostelworld can pull in approximately 500M Euro a year, and with price comparisons on the rise, that is a huge chunk of change TripAdvisor is skipping.
The thing is, TripAdvisor has the users, paid and organic traffic, and advertising budget to compete with its own customers. Hostelz.com and Hostelzoo.com struggle acquiring enough traffic the old fashioned search engine marketing way that Booking.com and even Hostelworld do, but TripAdvisor does, and has been effective for hotels. Hostel beds might have a lower ABR to hotel ADR, but going bay a cost per click action, hostel booking sites and even hostels themselves would be willing to pay more, if the conversion speaks for itself.
And currently, conversion is down, because expectations are not being met. When people look at a hostel on TripAdvisor, they just read the reviews because they show the price for two guests, or a private room, instead of one dorm bed. Why won’t they change this? We’re sure Hostelworld raised the flag, maybe Booking.com too, but TripAdvisor really needs to hear it from you, the user, so give them a call and share your disappointment 781-800-5000
Cheers.
I think the booking system of TA is some 10 years out of date, every process on the website from a suppliers point of view at least is extremely slow, including the customer service and the whole service is mediocre at best. Although, everything is reviewed to make sure it’s reliable I heard of a hotel recently that offered a musician free accommodation if you “could get them 5 5-star reviews, do you never really know. I mean, you cannot even set the logo of your business as a primary photo. It feels awkward even to point ot out. Yet TA remains a master of its own domain thanks to industry advantage and will probably stay this way.